War in Tethyr n-2

by Victor Milán

  Zaranda only grinned.

  The man rode into the sunset down the indifferently kept-up road, which ran past the castle and on into Masamont. He sported a flamboyant plumed hat, ringleted dark hair that bobbed about his shoulders, grandiose mustachios, and a coat with a riot of colored ribbons pinned down the front. He wore a rapier through his sash and a yarting slung across his back. He cantered his mount, a striking palomino mare with a long and lustrous white mane and tail, up to the two spearmen who stood guard before the castle gate, and halted on the bridge.

  "Greetings, gentles," he said, sweeping off his hat and bowing long from the saddle. "I hight Fyadros, the Incomparably Wonderful Bard, and this is Zizzy, the Wonder Horse."

  As if in greeting, the mare bobbed her head three times, making her forelock bounce, and thrice smote the wooden bridge with a dainty hoof. The guards gaped.

  "What brings you this way, good bard?" asked one, too overawed by the splendor of this apparition to remember his obligation, as a member of a rural robber baron's entourage, to be rude and overbearing at all times.

  "We seldom see the likes of you hereabouts," echoed his companion, similarly stricken.

  "Indeed, that's evident by the quaint way your jaws hang down to your hauberks," the bard said. "What brings me is my whim, which rules with a hand of iron; I come from here, and there, and everywhere. Just now I feel the winds of adventure blowing me to Zazesspur, whence I shall take ship for the wondrous realm of Maztica."

  The guards looked at each other. "Do you think," asked the one on the right, "that you could stay a night or two? We don't get much by way of entertainment out here."

  "The village women hate us, the trollops," the other said. "They give us nothing we don't take at poniard-point."

  "Indeed? Such strapping stalwarts as yourselves?" The bard stroked his long chin and looked thoughtful. "It could be that I might be induced to bide the night here, if nicely asked."

  The guard on the right turned and bellowed for an errand boy to go and fetch the chamberlain. While they waited, Fyadros entertained the guards with improbable tales of a halfling who attempted intimacies with a firbolg maid.

  At length the great oaken gates groaned open behind them. A slight middle-aged man in a black robe stood there. He had receding dark hair, white-touched at the temples, and a wisp of mustache. A dirty, skinny boy peeked past a gate valve behind him.

  "I am Whimberton," the man said in a thin voice, "chamberlain to Castle Lutwill and the ever-glorious, to say nothing of-victorious, Baron Lutwill. Who might you be?"

  "He's a bard," the guard on the right said.

  "He has a Wonder Horse," added the one on the left.

  "I am of course Fyadros, the Incomparably Wonderful Bard, and being of generous disposition only mildly miffed at not being recognized at once, seeing what a backwater this is."

  "Of course I recognize you, good Fyadros," the chamberlain said smoothly. "It was only that poor light mo-mentarily dulled my sight. What might I do for you?"

  "Your guards hinted you might care to beseech me to pass the night within and brighten your dull and meaningless lives with my stories and songs, which are, it goes without saying, incomparably wonderful."

  "Without saying," agreed Whimberton with a nod.

  "He told us this great story," said the guard on the left. "See, this halfling fancied a firbolg wench, so he took a bucket-"

  The guard on the right poked him in the ribs with the butt of his spear. "Enough! His Excellency the chamberlain don't want to hear that story! Least, not from the likes of you. You always get the punch lines wrong."

  "Do not!"

  "Do so."

  "Be silent," Whimberton said conversationally, "or I'll have your backs scourged raw, roll you in rock salt, and heave you into the pigsty for the night."

  "I could, of course, abide in night's jeweled pavilion, shaming the crickets with my songs," Fyadros said. The mare raised her head and whinnied as if in agreement.

  "Be not hasty, fair Fyadros," said Whimberton hastily. For all his languid manner he liked a ribald ditty as well as the next man, and entertainment lay pretty thin on the ground, out here in the sticks of strife-torn Tethyr. "In the name of my lord and master, the ever-glorious and — victorious Baron Lutwill, I bid and beseech thee to enter these precincts, and stay and amuse us so long as your heart desires."

  The bard looked thoughtful, then nodded. "I suppose I shall. Though 'amuse' is a paltry word for what I shall do to you."

  "You're half-elf, aren't you?" the chamberlain asked, studying him through twilight. "We don't see many of them with such impressive mustachios."

  "I have many attributes," Fyadros declared airily, "and every one is unique and wonderful. Shall we proceed within?"

  "To a certainty. Follow the lout; he'll lead you to the stables."

  "Ooh, I'm going to get you for this," Goldie promised sotto voce as they passed through the torchlit gate in the ragged boy's wake. "Zizzy, the Wonder Horse?"

  "A spur-of-the-moment improvisation," Farlorn the Handsome replied in a murmur audible only to the mare's great rearward-swiveled ears. He gave a quick surreptitious scratch of his thumb tip to his upper lip, where the glue that held his false mustachios in place made him itch. "Now hush, lest you spoil our little game."

  In her fragrant covert atop the little rise, Zaranda felt a pang as she watched the gates shut. Whom for? she wondered. Farlorn or Goldie?

  "They're in," she said, sliding down the back slope on her rump.

  Stillhawk rose from where he squatted, watching star reflections at play in the creek. He gave Zaranda a look, which she steadily returned. Then he jumped onto his horse and vanished into the dark.

  I know you don't like it, my friend, Zaranda thought. But you're likeliest to get through to summon the others. They mustn't go astray, with Farlorn and Goldie inside the beast's belly.

  She glanced back to the top of the rise, where Byador lay alone keeping watch on the castle. She fought the impulse to climb up and rejoin him. He would not gain self-confidence until he bore responsibility alone.

  So she was left with her thoughts, and Shield and Chen, who would not be parted from her. She was glad for the great orc's presence. His eyes saw farther at night than any human's, and if trouble found them she could ask for no better blade, or pair of blades, at her back.

  Willy-nilly, she had come to trust him as she trusted Stillhawk, though the ranger still hated the orog.

  Not that trouble was likely. That very morning Zaranda and her tiny band had watched the heavy wooden gates swing open and half Baron Lutwill's complement of soldiers march forth to begin collecting the increased taxes the posted parchments had announced. With forces much reduced the soi-disant baron had also perforce decreased his patrols, which were in any event predictable, throughout the countryside. And the people of Masamont tended to keep behind heavily barred doors by night, for fear of chance meetings with the baron's men, which seldom went to the towsfolks' advantage.

  Still, there remained the small and gnawing chance that they had been seen and betrayed, or espied by magic, or that a tax-collecting band, returning for some reason unforeseen, might stumble across their covert. Just such random events had altered the outcome of half a hundred conflicts, from duels to the meeting of great armies. That was why Zaranda put so little faith in plans drawn elaborately up before the fact.

  She sighed and sat down. Chen looked up at her and smiled, her pale, freckled face seeming lightly self-luminous in the last lingering light of day.

  "Will you let me go with you?" the girl asked.

  "No. We've talked this out before. You've not yet learned enough." Though the girl had been trying, painfully hard. It was as irksome to her quicksilver nature to toil laboriously to learn as it was natural for Shield. Yet she had done so with no less dedication than the orog.

  "But how will I ever become a mage if I never put what I know into practice?" Chen wailed.

  "That's a fair ques
tion. You cannot. And still-the time isn't now."

  Chen expelled a huffing breath and turned away. Zaranda laid a hand upon her shoulder. "Now, come. Let's review what you've learned of the incantation that sends your foes to sleep. It's not infallible, and won't work at all against foes who are very powerful or mighty in magic. Yet, day in and out, it's one of the likeliest to save your life…"

  Half an hour after midnight-by which time Zaranda's nerves were drawn as taut as fiddle strings and scraped as by a bow, for fear the signal would arrive before her forces-the horses in the wood lot raised their heads and pricked their ears. They uttered no giveaway whinnies of greeting; their muzzles were wrapped in soft cloth, another trick Zaranda had learned from the Tuigan horse-barbarians.

  Shield said nothing, but stood up with scimitars star-gleaming suddenly in his hands. Zaranda lifted up Crackletongue in its scabbard, which she had unbelted, and stood up more slowly.

  The assault group picked its way carefully if not noiselessly through the brush. They were Protective Company volunteers and Balmeric's mercenaries, numbering fifty in all-half Zaranda's cadre-in-training among them. All had volunteered, but she didn't want to risk losing many of her best pupils; even victory could cost dearly. They had drawn lots for the honor of accompanying her.

  It nearly broke her heart. They had no idea what they were getting into, not down in their guts where it counted. Many of them had by now seen combat with marauding bands, been wounded, seen comrades die. But battle against trained soldiers, even barracks sweepings such as would accept service with the likes of Baron Lutwill… she hoped the survivors did not look back in bitterness on their eager naivete.

  The company dismounted and muzzled and hobbled the horses. Zaranda had as yet no true cavalry beyond herself. But after facing the horse-borne Tuigans, she mounted her own troops for mobility's sake, though they fought afoot.

  Stillhawk was somewhere out in the night, prowling round the castle walls, alert for unforeseen events. He was nearly as unseeable, wrapped in his elven cloak and mastery of stealth, as if he'd had a spell of invisibility cast upon him. With nothing more to do, Zaranda wrapped her own cloak about her and settled in to sleep.

  The air was cool and heavily still. The only sounds, besides the muted drumming of hooves, were the trill of field crickets and the distant spectral voicings of an owl. The moon had set before midnight-fortuitous that Lutwill had picked yesterday for sending forth his tax collectors.

  Since her troops could not rival Stillhawk in stealth, Zaranda had decided on a rapid approach, rather than trying to creep across six hundred yards of open ground. Her riders had muffled their mounts' hooves, but there was a limit to how quietly fifty horses could trot.

  As they neared the walls, Zaranda's skin felt as if it were bunching at the nape of her neck in expectation of a sudden shout of discovery, or perhaps the deadly compound hiss of a volley of crossbow quarrels. But they reached the gate without incident. As she dismounted and crossed the wooden bridge on foot, a knotted rope slithered down the wall's stone face. She climbed quickly up.

  Farlorn reached a hand to help her over the top. "Forgive the lateness of the hour, milady," he said, swaying slightly. He was still got up in wig, hat, false mustachios, and ludicrous coat. "Mine host is a true hero where reveling is concerned."

  With soft thumps, rag-wrapped ladders were laid against the walls. The assault group began to clamber up. The seldom-oiled gate hinges were too loud to risk opening until after the alarm was raised.

  "You're drunk!" Zaranda said in a startled whisper.

  "The good baron took it in mind to put to the test certain tales concerning the capacity of bards for-excuse me-drink. I could hardly disappoint the man, now, could I?"

  He leaned so far back he threatened to topple into the courtyard. Zaranda grabbed his sleeve. "Are you in any condition to fight?" she asked.

  He nodded down the catwalk. A figure lay sprawled amidst a dark patch spreading on stone. "I'm fit enough to murder," he said. "Two, in fact: all the sentries our arrogant Baron Loot-well thought needful to guard his walls by night. And drunk or sober, few men can match steel with Farlorn Half-Elven."

  The raiders were beginning to filter into the yard down stone stairways. Just let me get a few more of my people inside, Zaranda prayed to unspecified gods, and it won't matter that they lack experience or even preponderance of numbers-

  And perhaps Armenides of Zazesspur was right and Ao had taken up an active interest in the world. As if in instant negation of her prayers, there rang a shout of, "Ho! Intruders!"

  The thrum-thump of a releasing crossbow sounded, followed by a stomach-clutching thunk. And a youthful volunteer pitched screaming from the top of the wall.

  21

  Across the courtyard, a single man stood in the opened door of a long, low stone building, evidently a barracks. No lights shone from within, but startled cries emerged as men struggled out of sleep to grope for weapons.

  Zaranda's lips moved, near-noiselessly. As the man bent down to try to recock his bow by hand, she flicked a tiny pellet from her fingertips. It sped over his back with unnatural accuracy and exploded into the red hell-glare of a fireball spell.

  The blast hurled him into the middle of the courtyard. Behind him, screams.

  A giant shadow loomed beside her: Shield, scimitars in hand. "Take a detachment and try to block the barracks exits," she told him. Though a fireball spell did its deadliest work confined by walls, she dared not hope to have killed or incapacitated everyone inside.

  For two heartbeats his eyes held hers, aglow with the fires flickering inside the barracks. He hated to leave her side in the heart of battle, but he had pledged his troth to her. He turned and barked out the names of squad leaders as he hurried down the steps.

  With a squeal of tormented metal, the gates began to open beneath Zaranda's feet. Surprise gone, the remaining raiders had to get inside as quickly as possible. Some still clambered up the ladder. Zaranda leaned down to help Fiora over the top.

  She heard a deep hum and the plangent clatter of a steel-tipped quarrel striking rock. Even as the metal rang, a longbow uttered a deep-voiced twang of response and a scream spurted from the tower. A cross-bowman had tried to mark her down from the safety of an arrow loop.

  Stillhawk stood behind her, bow still upheld. He nodded acknowledgment to her grin of thanks. At this range, the narrow shooting loops gave only an illusion of cover where the woodsman was concerned; if you could see to shoot through it, he could put an arrow in your eye.

  Unfortunately, with the exception of Farlorn sober, the ranger was the only marksman among them with nearly the skill for that feat. A few crossbowmen in the keep could massacre her youthful volunteers in the open courtyard. She dashed downstairs and toward the keep, Crackletongue in hand.

  The door at the tower's base was iron-bound oak, and likely a hand or more in thickness. The hinges were on the inside-which meant the door opened inward, a weakness, but likewise prevented an attacker from forcing it open with two quick strokes of a sledgehammer to burst the hinges. Doubtless a massive beam set in brackets barred it within. It would take long minutes for the strongest man to batter through it with an axe.

  Zaranda was prepared for this one. She flung forth her left hand, spoke words of command. She felt the heavy beam, bound it to her will, willed it to rise, heard the startled outcries from within.

  She felt the bar come free, let it drop outside the brackets, powerless to do more. She raised a foot and gave the door a furious kick.

  Her door-opening spell had dumbfounded the defenders; none thought to hurl his weight against the door. It swung ponderously open. Zaranda charged inside.

  A pale blur in candlelit gloom, a face startled beneath a steel cap and within a mail fringe. Zaranda slashed it across. Its owner staggered back, howling. Zaranda caught him by the hauberk and shoved him against mates trying to close from her left, while Crackletongue, alive with blue-white fire, did deadly work to her
right.

  A clang, a clash, a bellowing cry, and she was through to the steps that wound upward. She lunged up three, turned back to parry a spear thrust with her blade, grabbed the ashen haft, and slew the wielder with a forehand stroke. Reversing her grip on the spear, she threw it.

  It was a clumsy cast, left-handed, and did no one harm. It wasn't intended to. It did make the clot of guards jump back, which was her intent. Before they could recover, she reached in her pouch and flung a fistful of skunk-cabbage leaves in their faces, uttering an incantation. Thick green smoke swirled up from the leaves, surrounding the guardsmen, who began to cough, retch, and weep uncontrollably. Her own eyes streaming from the fringe effects, Zaranda bolted up the stairs.

  A story up, she came upon a guard swinging a cocked crossbow away from a firing loop to aim at her. She hurled herself at his legs and tackled him. They lay on the floor writhing. The man was shorter than she but had strength on her, and kept stupidly trying to force his weapon to bear on her instead of beating her over the head with it. His breath and body stank in her nostrils, and his garb was greasy to her touch.

  She succeeded in rolling atop him. At once she saw a second soldier standing in the middle of the round chamber, pointing a crossbow at her by the light of a single reed torch. Frantically she threw herself to the right, dragging her opponent's body over hers by sheer force of will. The crossbow thumped. The man Zaranda was wrestling with yelled in anguish as the bolt pierced his back and pinned him to the wood-plank floor.

  Fortunately it missed Zaranda. She eeled out from under him and lunged for the other. This one had wit to drop his now-useless weapon and grab for his dirk. Crackletongue's point took him in the throat before he could draw.

  There were straw-stuffed pallets strewn about the floor, as well as empty wine bottles and discarded crusts of bread and cheese. Breathing through her mouth, Zaranda grabbed up one of the pallets. Hoping few vermin were migrating into her hair and clothing, she continued up the stairs that wound around the inner side of the keep wall, holding the pallet before her.